Archive for the “School” Category
Is daycare making Natalie sick?
Everyone told us that the first few months of daycare are filled with illness after illness because your child is being exposed to a lot more germs. Is it true? I’ll recount our daycare experience so far:
Week One (3/3/08 – 3/7/08)
The Friday of Natalie’s first week of daycare, she woke up in the middle of the night crying. I made the really, really bad mistake of sitting down next to her in her bed before turning on the lights, cause when I sat down, I realized that she had thrown up. Ewww! She threw up a few more times over the next couple of hours, requiring several pajama changes for both of us. She eventually went back to sleep and was completely fine the next day.
Week Two (3/10/08 – 3/14/08)
That week was when she had her terrible diaper rash, bad enough to require Natalie to miss daycare on Wednesday and take a trip to the doctor’s office.
Week Three (3/17/08 – 3/21/08)
Natalie only went to school on Monday of this week, because Monday night she had a mild fever. She still had a fever Tuesday morning, which meant that even if it cleared up that day, she couldn’t go to school on Wednesday, because children have to be fever-free for 24-hours to attend school. In the middle of the night Tuesday, her fever spiked to 105.6!!! She and I took a luke-warm shower, which brought it down to 103. Then the motrin finally kicked in and she was able to go back to sleep with a temperature of 102.5. We took her to the doctor for the second Wednesday in a row this morning. The doctor found that her lungs, throat, and ears were all clear. He did a blood test to check for a hidden infection, (like a urinary tract infection) which was also clear. No elevated white blood cell count or anything else to indicate a problem. So, she has a virus that we’ll let run it’s course.
Was all this sickness because she’s in daycare or just a coincidence? We’ll ever know for sure. One thing I do know is that all these absences from school are not helping Natalie adjust to being there. It’s getting a little better, but still not great.
Grandma had the brilliant idea of taking some picture of Natalie’s teachers and classmates and spending time everyday looking at them. She got the idea because Natalie loves her Aunt Katy and has always been comfortable with her, even though Natalie has only seen Katy (who lives in CA) a few times in her life. The reason? Because we have pictures of Katy that we look at and talk about. If you ask Natalie “who’s that?” she says “Taty!” In fact, she learned to say Katy well before she learning to say Grandma or Nama.
The school director and Natalie’s teachers were enthusiastic about the project and took some pictures this week. Thank goodness, because between Natalie’s illness and the school being closed for Good Friday, she’ll have a whole week before going back to school.
Here is Natalie with one of her teachers and classmates at the beginning of the day, eyes still red from crying after Mama left:
And looking calmer at the end of the day, but eyes red from her impending illness:
Second Day of School
The second day drop-off was a little rougher than the first day. The first day Natalie really didn’t know what she was in for, so she had nothing to cry about. The second day she wailed like a heartbroken little girl whose parents just abandoned her. It was really, really, really hard to walk away. Then I made the mistake of calling the school only 15 minutes later to check on her. The teacher explained that another teacher was holding her and they were trying their best to distract her and transition her as best they could. I could hear her crying in the background. I felt physically ill—as if my heart could break. All morning I had a big lump in my throat and an ache in my chest. I felt so, so awful, which led me to imagine how awful Natalie must have been feeling…small…frightened…confused…in an unfamiliar place with strangers…unable to communicate. Then I had to stop that line of thinking for my own sanity.
Thankfully, when we called at 1 pm, we heard a very positive report. The teacher told us that although Natalie had a rough start to the morning, she perked up a lot when they did an art project. She also had fun reading stories and singing songs, ate nearly all of her lunch and went down for a nap with no problem.
When we picked Natalie up in the afternoon, she looked to be in better spirits than she had when we picked her up on Monday. The teachers reported that Natalie got upset when other parents come to pick up their kids—their theory is that she gets scared of seeing new people.
I have to keep telling myself that Natalie knows we love her. The fact that she reacts strongly to us leaving her shows that she has a healthy attachment to us. I have to remind myself that going to daycare is a tough transition, but I really think Natalie will love it once she’s adjusted. But I think tomorrow I’ll wait until the afternoon before I call to check on her.
First Day of School
Our plan was to get Natalie to bed early yesterday so she’d be well-rested for her first day. Natalie gets cranky if she hasn’t slept enough, a trait she gets from me. She had slept in on Sunday morning, so we tried to prevent her from napping to force an early bedtime. The plan completely backfired. Natalie fell asleep in the car at 4pm, took a 1 hour nap, and then (despite several tries beforehand) didn’t get to bed until midnight!!!! So we were all a little tired and groggy this morning—not the best way to start the first day of school. Quite to my surprise, however, Natalie was in good spirits as we headed to the Goddard School.
Here she is eating Cheerios (Organic Morning O’s actually) on the way to school:
When we got to Natalie’s classroom, we stowed all her stuff (sleeping bag, two changes of clothes, blanket, and mousy) in her cubby, hung her coat (2 coats actually—one for the car and one for going outside) on the hook, and put her lunch (peas, grapes, veggie burger, and yogurt, plus a cup of water, 2 cups of milk and 2 bottles) away in the refrigerator. We let Natalie loose to play with some toys while we gave the head teacher the “Natalie Information Sheet” we wrote up:
At this point, Chris and I both started to feel a little panicked, but I think Natalie was too confused and too busy looking at all the kids and teachers and toys to realize what was happening. When we left, she was sitting at the table getting ready for snack and barely looked up when we kissed her good-bye. I only shed a few tears as we walked away from the classroom. Whew—not at all the tear-fest I was expecting!
We called the school around 1 pm to see how Natalie was and were shocked to hear that she was taking a nap! The teacher reported that unfortunately Natalie’s good mood didn’t last very long after we left. She was clingy with the teachers, reluctant to get down even during outside play time, cried during lunch and didn’t eat much. As we predicted, with little sleep the night before, she was tired and cranky and probably ready for nap-time well before noon. We resisted the urge to pick her up early.
When we arrived at school at 4:15, we peeked through the window before going in. Natalie was sitting on a teacher’s lap watching the other kids play. When we went in, it was clear that she had been crying—the teachers explained that she started getting upset when a few other kids got picked up by their parents. The funny thing is, when we greeted her, she seemed more interested in my car keys than in either of us. Thankfully, the teachers reported that Natalie slept for almost two hours and woke up in good spirits! She ate some yogurt for snack, drank a bottle, and enjoyed playing outside. All in all, she did very well on her first day!
Natalie was happy and giggly in the car, and wasn’t even desperate to nurse as I expected she would be when we got home. We had a nice time playing and eating dinner. Around 7 pm, Natalie started saying “night-night” and was asleep by 7:20!!! By 7:45 all the dishes were done and Chris and I were sitting on the couch with our laptops and our feet up. If we can stick to this schedule, we’ll be golden. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that she doesn’t wake up soon and think she’s had a nap…